Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the guy who sung out "YOU LIE" at President Obama during his first State of the Union address, is under a cloud tonight. He used to be a wrestling coach at Ohio State. While he was coach a number of wrestlers came to him and told him the team doctor was sexually abusing them. He is not accused of abusing them himself, but he never made any report of the allegations, although he was required to by law.

He's claiming nobody made any allegations. There are a lot of men who say they did and he ignored them.

I don't think he's going to take over the speakership when Ryan leaves.

Today he was brought to the High Court of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, and was charged (so far) with three counts of criminal breach of trust and one count of using his position for gratification, as part of a probe into missing money from the state fund 1MDB. He pleads not guilty for all charges.

His bail was fixed at 1 million Ringgit (about US$247,000) and two sureties. There will be a case management hearing on August the 8th, before his trial on February and March next year.

In the 9.45AM estimate of Najib's birth chart, (born July 23, 1953) his SLR features t.Pluto rising, t.Mercury (which partile conjuncts his Mars) partile squaring SLR MC, and his Saturn-Neptune conjunction partile on SLR Nadir.

Edited to add: His defence team is lead by Dr. Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, born on February 4, 1952, in Penang, Malaysia.

Check out their synastry! If Najib's birth time is close to my estimate, then Shafee's Mercury would exactly be 135º from Najib's partile Venus-Jupiter conjunction, regardless of his birth time. It connects to Najib's Sun and Mercury as well. Shafee's Mars squares Najib's Mercury too.

A Big Bingo with Sidereal Astrology and SLR's! In Sidereal Astrology Saturn-Neptune symbolism is recognized as a 'removal' aspect and the negative manifestation for Mercury-Mars symbolism according to Ebertin's 'Combination of Stellar Influences' is:

The stage of getting involved in controversies or lawsuits, the bringing about of disputes.

Yes! It gives me a little more confidence in that estimate time. Also, don't forget the Mercury-Pluto co-angularity!Quoting Donald Bradley:

t. MERCURY aspecting t. PLUTO
"Circumstances cause great nervous tension... may be backed up against the wall of convention or written law, and must 'fight his way out' of the predicament. Crises arise which tax his patience, force him to 'face the music,' and declare openly his stand on matters. Under terrific nervous pressure, he may be forced to sign his name, as with regard to a loyalty-oath... the astrological index of 'being given the third degree.'"

The Moon is partile on Malaysia's Caplunar MC, with Uranus and Pluto moderately angular too. As it usually is the case, children were the highlight of the news, but this time, in a Uranus-Pluto (absolutely shocking) manner.

A 41-year-old man married an 11-year-old. (The marriage took place in Thailand though.) Huge, huge outcry from Malaysians at large, as well as from children's and human's rights organisations, and from the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Wan Azizah. Despite this I still see one or two people justifying the so-called "marriage," their point being "the child and their parents agreed to the marriage." My goodness, haven't people heard of consent laws and statutory rape?

And in today's news, an infant, left under a babysitter's care, was found dead and with a cracked skull in a refrigerator.

I apologise for the Uranus-Pluto tones of these both events, but gosh...

Last night (7/3), Poland's government purged its supreme court, seen as an undercutting of its court system, a building confrontation with the EU, and a suppressive act toward its people. Protests by tens of thousands of people began at once.

The purge was effective at midnight (0:00 Wednesday), but the effect began sooner, after it was announced. By sunset (about 9 PM), protests had formed in the streets of Warsaw. Lech Walesa has re-emerged to lead "a campaign of civil disobedience" against the actions.

Warsaw's Arisolar is right on target for such a severing assault on the judiciary. In addition to the universal Moon-Saturn square:

Around sunset, CapQ MC was square transiting Pluto, with Mars hovering just barely outside a 2° orb of Descendant. CapQ MC hits Uranus in a couple of days. Transiting Uranus just moved into orb of Capsolar IC. CanQ IC touched Saturn. Transiting Saturn is still backing toward Cansolar IC (almost back in orb, and I think its station eventually will be right on the angle).

There is so much going on in DC these days - astrological and consequential - it's hard to know where to begin with this.

So this event was July 5, apparently around 3:30 PM EDT (ha! as Venus and Jupiter were crossing angles in Washington). We know what the Capsolar and Arisolar are like. The Caplunar has Moon and Pluto closely angular, with a more widely angular Mercury-Uranus square. So the main particulars of this particular event involve the Day stuff.

The CapQ doesn't show anything exactly centered on that time. Yes, transiting Sun has been perpetually on CapQ IC for weeks, but it isn't aspect anything at the moment. CapQ angles are just a bit too far past Pluto and a bit too far before Uranus, so it's about the midpoint; but I'll be danged if I'm going to start tracking every moment of angularity-averaging through the month. (CapQ Ascendant is 2°36' before ingress Uranus, 2°46' past square ingress Pluto - almost exactly the split. Oh, just noticed transiting Pluto is just barely within 2° of the angle.) - And Pluto, of course, is in its long-term opposition to Capsolar MC (1°47').

The CanQ is resignation-worthy, though: t Saturn is on Dsc, ingress Neptune is on MC (squared by Venus). Voila!

Wild fires burst out all around Los Angeles last night, with new ones bursting out in San Diego and San Bernardino Counties, and then, late and sudden, in Goleta in Santa Barbara County.

This is the anniversary of the start of the Alamo fire in Santa Barbara County last month. It broke out of control in the hills above Goleta "around 8:40 p.m.," according to LA Times. Evacuations came quickly and some homes have been lost. Thousands of acres have burned so far, and surely this will expand rapidly in the next day or two. The extreme heat conditions and "powerful winds," of course, have fed this and made it harder to contain.

The Arilunar came in at 8:46 PM, almost the minute that the fire broke out of control. It is both fire-prone and indicates economic crisis. - Overall, the charts are horribly accurate: Fires are easy

(We just drove through there Thursday night on our return from the area. We slept not far from there Wednesday night.)

11:45 AM Eastern Time, (DC) Mueller announced indictments of 12 Russian Military Intelligence operatives for hacking the DNC and Podesta's emails in order to undermine the US election process. It happened right around the time Trump asked Russia to hack into Hillary's campaign, but that's not part of the indictments. Yet.

A jaguar named Valero escaped his enclosure in the Audubon Zoo in St Louis, 7:20 AM ,July 13, 2018. Valero mauled four alpacas, an emu and a fox all of whom died, and a fifth alpaca and two other foxes, who will likely survive. He was sedated by dart, captured and returned to his night house about an hour later, by 8:15 AM. The zoo will remain closed till tomorrow.

Valero was born March 2015 in the San Diego zoo and moved to the Audubon October 2017. He will not be put down. It appears the roof of his enclosure was compromised somehow.

A jaguar named Valero escaped his enclosure in the Audubon Zoo in St Louis, 7:20 AM, July 13, 2018.

My first impression on reading this was that it probably caused quite a bit of emotional commotion, even though it was too early in the day for the zoo to be crowded. I expect to see Neptune as the culprit (plus some Mars for natural feeding). Let's see what we get.

The event chart itself has Uranus and MC and Mars setting. Moon looks like she's about to rise, but is actually already risen and outside the foreground zone, so there wasn't a "crowds at the zoo" event.

The new Canlunar (less than three hours earlier) could have ended far more tragically. Saturn is half a degree from Descendant and Neptune 4° off MC. One actually is left wondering why there wasn't a serious tragic turn to this. (Possibly for the animal caretakers there was. We don't know all the small stories.)

The CapQ is not a big deal. Mercury does make it to an angle, though the rest of the Moon-Mercury-Saturn Capsolar cluster is just a bit too far one way or the other to be taken seriously. Of course, we're in the zone for Saturn transiting conjunct Capsolar Moon for the whole world, only 05' apart. Similarly (again for the whole world) Uranus conjoins Cansolar Moon (04').

This seems to be one of those modest local events that only shows in the small stuff. Libsolar Descendant (technically valid for a whole year but unreliable outside its quarter) is 25°20' Gemini. Transiting Pluto had been transiting its Descendant for a long time, and was 20' away; then last night's partial solar eclipse hit, landing exactly on the Libsolar Asc opposite the Pluto. Transiting Sun was still within a degree of Libsolar Ascendant for the event - this actually feels like something that would stir up the animals! Without getting the (overdone) "eclipse" idea involved, we can simply say that a transiting Sun-Pluto opposition fell exactly across Libsolar horizon.

I was wrong about the Neptune but right about the Mars. Libsolar Quotidian also wraps the package with ingress Mars 18' on one side of Descendant and progressed Mars 10' on the other side.

The zoo wouldn't have opened till 10 AM. It remained closed after the jaguar was secured so the staff could mourn, according to wdsu.com, which is local news media.
The zoo released the names of the animals who didn't survive and the ones who were injured. I think the emotional toll on the staff and the regular patrons, mostly families with children, is massive.
The jaguar wasn't feeding, btw. He was stretching his muscles and using his skills, hunting. Doing what jaguars do. Just like the mouser in the barn - they hunt better with their bellies full. If he'd been hunting for a meal, he would have taken an alpaca and settled down to eat it.

A duck boat with 31 aboard swamped, capsized and sank while running for shore during a squall spawned by the same thunderstorm that spun off 27 tornados in Iowa last night. There were two ducks out, one made shore safely. The sinking was caught on phone by people on a dinner boat cruise that remained at dock while they threw life preservers to people in the water. 17 bodies, including children, were recovered. The boat sank, came to the bottom in 40' of water, then rolled back and settled under 80' of water.

Tornado warnings began sounding in Polk County around 2:55 p.m. Thursday. A short time later, reports trickled in of a funnel cloud touching down in Bondurant. At about 4:15 p.m., a tornado warning was issued for Pella, and about 20 minutes later, for Marshalltown.

Coordinates are now available: 36N36'26", 93W19'10", and the death toll stabilized at 17. We've probably all read the stories over the weekend The 911 call came in as Moon neared MC (opposite Uranus on IC) and Saturn had just passed Asc for the locale. - This, of course, occurred in that part of the country where the Capsolar Moon-Mercury-Saturn is angular.

CNN reports:
Dozens of people have been killed and scores injured in the worst wildfires to affect Greece in over a decade.

Athens area.
It seems it has started on 7/23/18 sometime in the afternoon (CEDT), and has spread during night, with news hitting the media on 7/24/18 morning.

Athens has an inconsequential Caprsolar, but the July 17 Cansolar is quite consequential, with Saturn on Eastpoint.

Overlapping this, the June 29 Caplunar has Mars square MC and Pluto closely rising - notice how it didn't "kick in" severely until the Cansolar set up. The July 19 Liblunar then threw Pluto on EP (14'), with Saturn rising (1°22') in mundane square to Moon near MC.

Last night (7/24/18) at 9 PM EDT, CNN broadcast a taped conversation between Michael Cohen and Donald Trump - delivered by Cohen's lawyer. While the tape may or may have legal implications per se, it does mark a "line in the sand," a loud signal that Cohen has tapes and no longer is placing Trumps interests first.

It's worth checking to see how Washington, DC reacted to this and whether this event had actual relevance as a mundane event for the nation. Here are the ingress summaries excerpted from the forecast section:

At 9 PM sharp, Jupiter was on Washington's Zenith and Mars was within half a degree of Ascendant. (It doesn't look like that ecliptically at all, but it was). Mercury was setting closely, with a mundane Mercury-Mars opposition across the horizon. Moon was mundane square Uranus and ecliptically conjunct Saturn. In other words, it registered overall as a positive, surprising (shocking?) event that constitutes a war of words. A 15' Venus-Neptune opposition carries the extra note of "betrayal by friends."

July 27, 2018 just about 11:30 AM U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., allowed the case brought by the attorneys general of the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia to proceed, ruling "emoluments" covers profits made from agents of foreign governments renting rooms in the Trump hotel in downtown DC.

July 27, 2018 just about 11:30 AM U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte in Greenbelt, Md., allowed the case brought by the attorneys general of the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia to proceed, ruling "emoluments" covers profits made from agents of foreign governments renting rooms in the Trump hotel in downtown DC.